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Happy Arbitrarily Artificial Moment In Time!

I was thinking about how arbitrary the New Year is. We imbue it with this magical property, as if as soon as the clock strikes 12:00am, everything is suddenly new and different, when in fact, it is just the same as the moment before was and pretty much the same as the moment that comes after it will be.

The reality is that we are merely projecting our own hopes onto this idea of newness. It is a lie we allow ourselves to believe because we are afraid to admit that no two moments, no two days, no two years are really any different, in the large scheme of things, from any others. As Douglas Adams so aptly said, “Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so.” Trite and humorous, but truer than we would ever care to admit.

Reality is harsh and stark. In reality, nothing really changes unless we decide to change it. Sure, we make New Years resolutions, but most of us know that we will not keep them. This has become such a truism that many people makes jokes about keeping their resolutions because the truth is so obvious that we can’t seriously dismiss it.

In reality, tomorrow is only different in that the rising and setting of the sun and stars, and the length of the day, is slightly different from what it was today. Other than that, it is the same, unless we choose to make it different. A few of us will; most of us won’t.